Parental Alienation Insanity
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We’ve done enough investigations into family injustice by now to know that both mothers and fathers get screwed by the family court system. It’s sickening. But this case in Colorado will haunt you because the story highlights one of the biggest problems with family courts across the country: Parental Alienation Insanity.
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“Do you think you have a home-field advantage? Hooper…?”
Bruce Hooper was having a little fun with our camera…
Wayne: “I really want to talk to you about your son.”
Bruce Hooper: “No, you don’t.”
Wayne: “Yes, I do.”
But Hooper wasn’t laughing moments earlier when we saw him in the yard of his home in this remote part of southwest Colorado…
In the tiny town of Norwood, Colorado.
Wayne: “You admitted child molester… Don’t you think that’s important?
Hooper: “Nope…”
Hooper was never charged… but in court documents and a police report… he admitted undressing an underage girl and licking her private parts.
But he had an explanation… he says he was drunk… And the girl wanted him to take her to bed.
Do you know how old the girl was…? Four… disgusting right?
And Mr. Hooper was clearly worried his young son would find out what we already knew.
Hooper: “Listen, you say anything about that in front of my son.”
Wayne: “Anything about what?”
Hooper: “What you just said down there…”
Wayne” Well, but it’s true, isn’t it?”
His confession is absolutely true…
“Even if you just go by what he has admitted to, that is a person who in my humble opinion should never be around another child for the rest of his life,” said Tina Swithin.
Author Tina Swithin now runs One Mom’s Battle… helping women fight to end family injustice across the country…
She fought her own long custody fight years ago after escaping to a woman’s shelter because of domestic abuse…
“Had they listened to me, my daughters would have been spared six years of trauma.”
Her children have been saved…
These blood-curdling screams come from a young boy who has Bruce Hooper as his father.
“I was horrified and shocked.”
The cries of a little boy who didn’t want to leave his mom’s side… even to visit his dad…
“It’s a case that’s now keeping me up at night,” adds Swithin.
And it’s why we’ve come to Colorado… for a case of parental alienation insanity.
“I want to be dead!”
It is hard to listen to this… We have blurred the little boy’s face… but you can certainly hear his pain…
“I don’t think words can explain what it’s like for a mom to not have her child.”
Christine McGinley has been fighting her ex-husband over custody of their son for ten long years.
Since he was literally a baby…
She left when Hooper was charged with harassment and domestic violence for pushing her to the ground while she held their infant child in her arms…
Wayne: “I know you were found guilty of domestic violence.”
Hooper: “No, it was a plea deal.”
Actually, Hooper plead guilty in what’s called an Alford plea… where the defendant does not admit to actually committing a crime.
A few weeks after that first arrest… he was jailed for violating the restraining order issued by a Colorado judge…
In 2015 a Colorado judge decided that Bruce Hooper would only be allowed to see his son when the visit could be supervised…
Christine would have full custody…
After the court found evidence this boy was simply not safe in his father’s care… Evidence of domestic violence.
Yet in December of 2016, something began to change… another judge Corey Jackson allowed unsupervised visitation to begin.
And quickly the boy’s own pediatrician’s office and his therapist reported evidence of more abuse as required of them by law…
“Observed redness and a bruise to the anus.”
“He would throw tantrums,” explains child psychologist Susannah Smith. “He began using sexualized terms like my junk and he’d pull down his pants and rub his penis against Christine. Very unusual behavior.”
“Injuries around the eye, injuries on his forehead, injuries mostly in his face and head and some, a lot of them within a short period of time, and things continue to escalate and escalate,” expressed Christine.
Two years ago, Bruce told ProPublica the bruises were just part of being a boy…
And again, suggesting like that four-year-old girl he molested…
His son wanted to play rough…
“My son is a boy through and through. Today he got pissed at me and he was throwing punches at me… wailing on me… and he’ll be like I bet you can’t tickle me now… he’s begging for the roughhouse,” declared Hooper.
After he admitted molesting a little girl Hooper claimed he was the only victim….
That alleged victim did not suffer and has no recollection of it…
Are you kidding me?
Despite the troubled history, the local CPS office we learned had actually decided as far back as 2015 that the problem wasn’t really dad but mom’s reports of abuse and it was long before the custody fight started…
And that’s where the conflicts in this case start to take shape…
CPS caseworker Jennie Thomas wrote “It might be smart for him to have something substantiating that she is wrong about him…”
Why would CPS help either side? Geography may explain it.
There are only 529 people living in Norwood, Colorado… the CPS worker who was involved in this case lives right here… just minutes away from the dad. They developed a relationship and can you believe this… she’s now the emergency contact for his son at the local school.
Two years ago… ProPublica did a deep dive into this case…
Citing other emails from CPS…
“Is mom making this up?”
And then those words… “Is mom creating parental alienation with regards to dad?”
Essentially supporters of Bruce started to claim that somehow Christine was convincing her son to be part of some will conspiracy to discredit dad.
Wayne: “Do you really believe in parental alienation?
Bruce Hooper: “Yes… I’ve experienced it myself.”
The United Nations Human Rights Council has blasted alienation theory as a pseudo concept…
But in this tragic Colorado case, it became clear that the local cops were convinced by Bruce that mom and this little boy were making it all up…
One of the cops in Norwood was Norman Squier… who had acted with Bruce in theatre productions in nearby Telluride…
Where the San Miguel County Courthouse is located.
In 2020 the principal of the local school called the police after the little boy claimed his father touches his penis and beats him. It was one of several complaints based on the child’s outcry.
Hooper may not think that previous molestation matters. But it mattered to the principal of the school in Denver. He was banned from coming on school property.
Despite 36 complaints from experts warning that Bruce was hurting his son…
One of the few supporters of Bruce turned out to be the wife of the former chief judge Steven Patrick.
Here’s the bigger problem… it wasn’t Christine that was making the complaints about alleged abuse…
A physician’s assistant in 2018 wrote “I have recently seen many disturbing pictures of the boy’s rectum and penis and have serious concerns that he is being molested.”
“What is it going to take for these people to see what’s going on.”
Dr. Smith has been a practicing psychologist for half a century…
“Nobody did anything. Nobody listened to it. They believed Buff,” stated Susannah Smith.
Smith told the CPS office in September of 2019 “Your treatment of this case is appalling and a real first for me.”
In 2022 Bruce wanted more parenting time… and requested only one custody evaluator…
Edward Budd, who used a discredited test, opined that Bruce now deserved primary custody…
He didn’t interview any of the professionals who had reported concerns of physical or sexual abuse…
He did not even report the child’s claims of sexual abuse…
Budd described Christine’s behavior as irrational and pathological… and judge Jackson ordered Bruce to now get primary custody…
Taking the boy away from the home he shared with his mom and grandmother in Denver… and sending him to live here instead…
“And interestingly though, Ed Budd did recommend that the child be in therapy weekly while being placed in dad’s care. That hasn’t happened,” emphasized Chelsea Augelli.
And Christine… she is now afraid to report what her son tells her.
“That’s what I think is most heartbreaking to see how these courts have played a part in taking away all of his therapists his medical providers his grandmother… who suffered a stroke when he was taken and died soon after,” exclaimed Christine.
Last year judge Jackson finally recused himself in this case… But only after he was appointed chief judge taking over for judge married to therapist Susan Coy Kendell.
She originally believed Hooper’s story, but not anymore…
There is a new judge at the Telluride court… a woman… Kelly Starritt… but little has changed… the little boy is still crying out before he goes back to dad… this piece of audio will pull at your heartstrings… especially if you’re a parent…
“I don’t want to go… I just want to kill myself right now… kill me… I hate life.”
“He’s at an adolescent age where suicide is incredibly common and self-harm statements… the child never made self-harm statements before until now,” affirmed Augelli. “And I think he’s afraid to even say anything because he’s never believed, literally.”
Christine’s lawyer requested a hearing over these threats of self-harm… she was denied… without a hearing.
“I mean that’s wrong… flat out we are not protecting children,” she added.
Then there was a motion to change venue filed in November… to get this controversial case judged somewhere else… somewhere where the conflicts aren’t so obvious…
“The relationships in the 7th judicial district demonstrate prejudice to mother.”
Judge Starritt said no… again without a hearing… that’s not justice.
Wayne: “You feel like you can’t protect him…”
Augelli: “Absolutely not. Like, it literally keeps me up at night.”
Even though this little boy is just ten years old… we had to ask Bruce if we could talk to him…
Wayne: “Would you mind if I talked to your son?”
Hooper: “No, you say one word to my son… it’s going to be… I’m going to have you arrested, okay?”
Wayne: “I just wanted to ask your permission.”
Hooper: “Okay… go away. Please go away.”
I waved anyway… but it was hard to leave after seeing the look on this little boy’s face… but sadly it’s just one of the family injustice horror stories sweeping America’s family court system in the name of parental alienation insanity…
Our work on family injustice began more than seven years ago in our headquarters’ hometown… Houston, Texas… we dramatically changed the way family lawyers donated money to Texas judges…
But in Colorado… district judges are all appointed by the governor… we hope governor Jared Polis is watching…
In the end, the only thing that really matters is this little boy… who must already be so damaged by all of this…
From what we can see his best interest is simply not being protected by the courthouse in this Colorado ski town… their unwillingness to do the right thing is indefensible…
They are sensitive about this case here in Telluride. Maybe they should be sensitive, are they doling out family justice here in Colorado or are they guilty of family injustice?
“Once you see what is happening in the court system I don’t know how you walk away from it,” argued Tina Swithin.
“I think it will go down in history as one of the biggest scandals of our lifetime if and when it is ever exposed,” she added.
Christine only gets to see her little boy twice a month… she has to drive all the way from Denver through dangerous mountain passes and then drive seven hours back.
The Christmas tree is still up in Christine’s Denver house… she set it up with her son over her Thanksgiving visit… she’s leaving it up until her son comes back for his next visit this month…
Wayne: “I haven’t seen any case, and I’ve investigated hundreds, where this many experts, dozens of experts say there’s something wrong here.”
Christine: “I agree, but in these courts, it doesn’t matter.”
“Ten out of ten one of the worst I’ve seen.”
Well-known Houston family attorney Jeff Diamant has agreed to help Christine…
Diamant is the attorney for Dolcefino Media… and we are joining the fight against this injustice….
“This is at the top of the charts for collusion, improper influence, and shearly insane behavior,” he said.
Diamant got into the case because of work being done by red thread divorce consulting Diamant’s wife…
“She brought these issues of alienation to my attention, and it became something that were both very passionate about addressing and trying to correct as far-reaching as we can.”
An entire multi-million-dollar industry has been formed to peddle parental alienation… we are taking kids away from the parent who warned of abuse. Even silencing children who complain.
“Parental alienation is probably the most diabolic weapon that has been created,” Jeff emphasized.
Dr. Suzanna Smith: “Anybody can be conned.”
Wayne: “And you think he’s a con?”
Dr. Suzanna Smith: “I think yeah. I think the master manipulators in these families end up with kids.”
“How does he know his mom is still fighting? How does he know that he is loved by his friends, and he’s loved by the community? That’s my job… That’s all I got… I got my hands tied, my feet tied, and half of my mouth taped shut,” stated Christine.
